Estimating wind conditions in forests using roughness lengths: A matter of data input

Abstract

This study makes use of data from six meteorological masts to examine five different data sources of roughness lengths. The data sources can be applied in most regions of the world. The consequences of applying wrong roughness lengths can impact the business case of a wind project. The experiment confirmed the preliminary expectation, as the optimized roughness approach provided better results than the remaining four approaches and, furthermore, was able to treat different tree heights. The initial test was conducted using a spatial resolution of 20 m for optimized roughness approach, while the other data sources used a greater resolution. As a response, optimized roughness approach was reused for the other spatial resolutions showing better results than the remaining approaches. One other remarkable finding associated with this study was the relationship between spatial resolution and errors in the estimation, as a resolution above 100 m provided random results with no relationship whatsoever.